Christ has died

Well it does to the people who post here... dispassionate and reasoned debate, with a good deal of humour thrown in for good measure.

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Southern Comfort
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Re: Christ has died

Post by Southern Comfort »

Calum, I suggest you read the following, for starters:

Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948-1975, page 454
Cipriano Vaggagini, The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform, esp. pp. 93 and 104
J.D. Crichton, Christian Celebration: the Mass, pp. 90-91
Bernard Botte, Le canon de la messe romaine, p. 62
G. Lucchesi, Mysterium fidei: Il testo della consecrazione eucaristica nel canone romano
Bernard Capelle, Travaux liturgiques, II, pp. 283-4

and then come back and tell us why an essentially simple view of Latin syntax should take precedence over the scholarship of the above-named gentlemen.

To give just one example (extracts from Bugnini, quoting the subcommittees of Consilium Working Group 10):

The addition "the mystery of faith" in the formula for the consecration of wine in the Roman Canon:
— is not blblical;
— occurs only in the Roman Canon;
— is of uncertain meaning and origin. The experts themselves disagree on the precise sense of the words. In fact some of them assign the phrase a quite dangerous meaning
<snip>
— interrupts the sentence and makes difficult both its understanding and its translation
<snip>
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Calum Cille
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Re: Christ has died

Post by Calum Cille »

Southern Comfort wrote:Calum, I suggest you read the following, for starters: ... and then come back and tell us why an essentially simple view of Latin syntax should take precedence over the scholarship of the above-named gentlemen.


Despite my previous clarification, you still seem to be continuing to labour under the misapprehension that I have proposed that any view of Latin syntax can decide ultimate meaning in this particular case. For the third time, as I said, "The making of sense of the cup being "[a/the] mystery of [the] faith" is another question."

Southern Comfort wrote:To give just one example (extracts from Bugnini, quoting the subcommittees of Consilium Working Group 10):

The addition "the mystery of faith" in the formula for the consecration of wine in the Roman Canon:
— is not blblical;
— occurs only in the Roman Canon;
— is of uncertain meaning and origin. The experts themselves disagree on the precise sense of the words. In fact some of them assign the phrase a quite dangerous meaning
<snip>
— interrupts the sentence and makes difficult both its understanding and its translation
<snip>


This quotation provides no discussion of the syntax of the sentence in question and is therefore of no help in a discussion of whether or not the phrase "mysterium fidei" does "fit in syntactically", as you put it. The quotation provides no support for what you have stated about the syntax and, equally, contradicts nothing of what I have written in response to your statements.

Supplying a list of names of 6 books (or even 16 books) and their authors with page references is not equivalent to making an online case to support your original statement. I have no need to read such material as the statements I have made about the grammar of the sentence being discussed could only be considered incorrect by someone either insufficiently skilled in the language, or having insufficient grasp of the difference between questions pertaining more properly to syntax and those pertaining more properly to semantics or pragmatics. You still have not presented any justification for dismissing my assessment of the grammar and syntax of the sentence in question.

In response to your suggestion, I suggest you read the books you've mentioned yourself and scour them for any such invalidation, as the above paragraph is insufficient for that purpose. Again, if you can find any Greek or Latin scholar who could invalidate any of my comments about the grammar of the sentence under discussion, please do. I would be extremely surprised to find any authoritative statement which disagreed with my rather obvious observations (I say obvious, but I mean, obvious to anyone sufficiently capable of discussing the ins and outs of Greek grammar, which you are either incapable of doing or unwilling to do). However, I will not take you up on your suggestion to pore through the above materials as I greatly suspect that they will be in general agreement with my own observations presented here, as the above quote from Bugnini is. I am willing to discuss what would seem to you to be any apparent disagreement, as you evidently made this quote because you viewed it as somehow in disagreement with something I have said previously.
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Re: Christ has died

Post by Mithras »

Time for the moderator to step in?
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Re: Christ has died

Post by musicus »

Quite possibly. From where I sit, I think a few wires have got crossed and we are in danger of generating more heat than light. By all means let's pursue the debate, but please maintain the niceties.
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Re: Christ has died

Post by Calum Cille »

This is the crux of my argument, of the open and honest discussion: (a?the?oh?-?) focus of debate: which for you and for many is unfolded for clarification of syntax.
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Re: Christ has died

Post by Southern Comfort »

More a case of locum quasi in membra discerpo, ergo sum, I think.
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Re: Christ has died

Post by Calum Cille »

On the contrary. As I keep repeating, the ultimate meaning is another question.
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Re: Christ has died

Post by musicus »

Gentlemen, you are losing us with all this. Would you consider continuing in another place (e.g. e-mail, Private Message system, etc), or even agreeing to differ?
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Re: Christ has died

Post by mcb »

The discussion about syntax has been a bit of a red herring, I think. The question was put in terms of 'parsing' the phrase mysterium fidei, but there's nothing much to say, really: it's a noun phrase, with head noun in the nominative or accusative (or somewhat implausibly, the vocative), and syntactically speaking it's presumably in apposition to an earlier noun phrase in the same case. Nothing much else to say really - it's not peculiar from a grammatical point of view, we just don't know what it means.

Alan29, you didn't answer the question: what have you got against The mystery of faith (or The word of the Lord) that you (presumably) haven't got against The Body of Christ?

Anyway, there's a much more compelling angels-on-a-pin-head question I think needs answering: what determines which words are written with an initial capital letter? Why Death and Cross in the memorial acclamations, but not Faith in the phrase we're looking at? Why Angels, Apostles, Thrones (to pick three at random from a quick skim of prefaces and prayers) but not Hosts, Glory or Name in the Sanctus?

It looks random and unprincipled to me. I wonder if it's inherently inflationary too: is adding capitals a way to express zealous adherence to tradition, er, Tradition? Come the next edition of the Missal, how many more words will be capitalised?
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Re: Christ has died

Post by Calum Cille »

musicus wrote:Gentlemen, you are losing us with all this. Would you consider continuing in another place (e.g. e-mail, Private Message system, etc), or even agreeing to differ?


Musicus,

with a glare like that, who could not bear to cave in to your request?

mcb wrote:The discussion about syntax has been a bit of a red herring, I think. The question was put in terms of 'parsing' the phrase mysterium fidei, but there's nothing much to say, really: it's a noun phrase, with head noun in the nominative or accusative (or somewhat implausibly, the vocative), and syntactically speaking it's presumably in apposition to an earlier noun phrase in the same case. Nothing much else to say really - it's not peculiar from a grammatical point of view, we just don't know what it means.


mcb,

more reason to comply with Musicus' request, as this is welcome evidence that my observation was not, to paraphrase, "only my opinion". I have no problem either with the sound of "lumen Christi" or "mysterium fidei" or any such exclamation. Irregular capitalisation doesn't bother me, though: most people's choice of punctuation is quite personal and, if I make a tune for some text, I stick to the historical source(s) I'm using. I would be very interested in finding out whether forum members would wish "Christ has died" to appear in the English missal in future.
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Re: Christ has died

Post by JW »

Calum Cille wrote:I would be very interested in finding out whether forum members would wish "Christ has died" to appear in the English missal in future.


'Christ has died' seems to be the most popular of the existing acclamations/proclamations, so I would guess that most congregation members, including myself, would prefer to keep it, if only because of our innate dislike of change. It also has a good ring to it and summarises some essential features of Christianity at an important time in the Mass. These sentences repeat what may have already been said in the Creed, but that is no bad thing.
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Re: Christ has died

Post by alan29 »

mcb wrote:The discussion about syntax has been a bit of a red herring, I think. The question was put in terms of 'parsing' the phrase mysterium fidei, but there's nothing much to say, really: it's a noun phrase, with head noun in the nominative or accusative (or somewhat implausibly, the vocative), and syntactically speaking it's presumably in apposition to an earlier noun phrase in the same case. Nothing much else to say really - it's not peculiar from a grammatical point of view, we just don't know what it means.

Alan29, you didn't answer the question: what have you got against The mystery of faith (or The word of the Lord) that you (presumably) haven't got against The Body of Christ?

Anyway, there's a much more compelling angels-on-a-pin-head question I think needs answering: what determines which words are written with an initial capital letter? Why Death and Cross in the memorial acclamations, but not Faith in the phrase we're looking at? Why Angels, Apostles, Thrones (to pick three at random from a quick skim of prefaces and prayers) but not Hosts, Glory or Name in the Sanctus?

It looks random and unprincipled to me. I wonder if it's inherently inflationary too: is adding capitals a way to express zealous adherence to tradition, er, Tradition? Come the next edition of the Missal, how many more words will be capitalised?


Sorry, I missed the question in all the extinct linguistics.I don't like "The Body of Christ," too much either. I always find myself prefixing it with "There you go......." I am firmly of the school that you translate into idiomatic English or you fail the GCSE. All this pseudo holy-ese gets uncomfortably close to Derek Trotters attempts to "posh up."
Presumably the capitalised words are spoken more portentously, otherwise in a spoken text its just eye-candy.
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Re: Christ has died

Post by Southern Comfort »

mcb wrote:The discussion about syntax has been a bit of a red herring, I think. The question was put in terms of 'parsing' the phrase mysterium fidei, but there's nothing much to say, really: it's a noun phrase, with head noun in the nominative or accusative (or somewhat implausibly, the vocative), and syntactically speaking it's presumably in apposition to an earlier noun phrase in the same case. Nothing much else to say really - it's not peculiar from a grammatical point of view, we just don't know what it means.


Precisely my point. Thank you, mcb.
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Re: Christ has died

Post by musicus »

Calum Cille wrote:Musicus,
with a glare like that, who could not bear to cave in to your request?

Nice use of the ursine puns strategy! :D
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Re: Christ has died

Post by Gwyn »

I'm looking at using 'Christ Has Died . . .' as a response to a processional (or something along those lines).
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